Nick Robinson is right, the BBC did get it badly wrong over immigration

Nick Robinson is right, the BBC did get it badly wrong over immigration

NICK ROBINSON comments on what he calls the BBC's "terrible mistake" in failing to address properly the issue of immigration in the late 1990s and early 2000s are very welcome. His words, broadcast in a documentary last night, echo those of former news editor Helen Boaden who last July said that the BBC had a "deep liberal bias" when she took up her job in 2004.

BBC political editor Nick Robinson is critical of the corporation's handling of immigration issues [REX]

All we need now is a BBC editor or correspondent brave enough to admit that the BBC still has a liberal bias. Nick Robinson came close to doing this with the angry tweets he fired off during last week's dire edition of Radio 4's Today - guest edited by musician PJ Harvey - although he was only spurred into action when John Pilger's monologue strayed into attacking the BBC.

Like the Soviet leaders who turned former favourites into non-persons the BBC is frank when it comes to admitting to past failings while simultaneously trying to claim that it has changed. But it never does change.

Last week's guest editorships of the Today programme were a case in point. Radio 4 thinks it observed its commitment to impartiality by balancing Ms Harvey with people thought to be of more conservative opinion, namely former MI5 chief Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller and Barclays bank chief executive Antony Jenkins.

The difference is that Manningham-Buller and Jenkins sought balance in the shows they guest edited. Jenkins for instance chose to subject himself to an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby who has been a critic of the City. Ms Harvey on the other hand was allowed to invite a succession of extreme Left-wing figures to spout whatever they liked, unchallenged and with no attempt at balance.

The BBC is not biased in the sense that one of its correspondents is going to say, "Vote Labour!" It is scrupulous in the airtime it allows Tory and Labour MPs. It is biased in that so many of the issues it covers begin from the presumption that a Left-liberal position is the one that all decent human beings hold and that anyone who deviates from this must be an oddball or extremist.

The BBC covers issues from a Left-liberal position and assumes this as the right point of view [GETTY]

The coverage of immigration typifies so much of the BBC's output in this. As Nick Robinson observes, for many years the BBC sought to suppress any kind of discussion on the subject apparently out of fear that it might stir some of its listeners into a state of racial hatred.

Just how wrong it was in this was revealed when after much soul-searching it allowed BNP leader Nick Griffin on to Question Time in 2009. Far from inspiring a wave of neo-Nazism it proved the beginning of a downturn in his party's support with his own side attacking him for his poor performance. Mr Griffin is what you get when you suppress debate on immigration. People turn to extremists when they feel that mainstream politics is ignoring their concerns.

Now that guests on the BBC are allowed to challenge immigration we can all see how reasonable the debate is. It isn't race that motivates so many people to oppose the open-borders policy imposed upon us by the EU, it is the effect on employment and public services of a sudden huge rise in the population.

The debate is not simply between pro-immigration and anti-immigration but over what sort of immigration should be encouraged and what should be disallowed.

A great number of people whom the BBC would have previously dismissed as bigots are actually in favour of controlled immigration. They want required, skilled workers to be allowed to settle in Britain. What they don't want is a benefits system that offers handouts to anyone prepared to get on a bus to London.

Voters will turn to extremists like the BNP when immigration discussion is suppressed [GETTY]

Over the weekend some of us learned that British taxpayers are paying for migrants' wives and children who do not even live in this country. Not only that but some migrants posted to Britain are allowed to carry on paying taxes in their homelands even though they are living here and using our public services.

Had the BBC allowed this debate prior to the accession of Eastern European countries to the EU in 2004 we wouldn't be in the mess we now are.

By censoring debate the BBC encouraged one of the most dishonest policies ever to be foisted upon the British people: an immigration policy that we were assured would result in 17,000 migrants arriving in the first year, a fraction of the 500,000 who actually came.

While I'm sure it was not designed to achieve political bias the BBC's policy of censoring debate on immigration played into the hands of Tony Blair at the 2001 and 2005 general elections in which Labour sought to make Conservative policies on immigration and Europe seem beyond the pale.

While the BBC does now allow some balanced debate on immigration liberal bias remains in other areas such as government cuts and climate change where anyone who disagrees with the BBC is treated as a fruitcake.

No one listening to the BBC over the past few years would guess that public spending has actually gone up under the coalition. Gay marriage and abortion are two other issues where you never feel you are getting both sides from the BBC.

Nick Robinson's admission of past bias is welcome but no one at the BBC admitted it at the time. Any reporter brave enough to speak out about continued areas of bias would be doing the nation a great service.